List of Heartless
.]] The are physical, living manifestations of the darkness within people's hearts. They manifest in two forms; "Pureblood" and "Emblem" (Emblem Heartless being created artificially), and they behave entirely devoid of emotion, hence the name "Heartless".Ansem Report 2: "One thing I am sure of is that they are entirely devoid of emotion". Story ''Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep As Xehanort had yet to release the Heartless in earnest, very few Heartless appear during Terra, Ventus, and Aqua's adventure. Back when Ventus was still Master Xehanort's apprentice, Xehanort had summoned several Neoshadows in order to force the boy to embrace his darkness, but Ventus refused, and was soundly beaten by the Heartless instead of them stealing his heart. Much later, as Aqua wanders the Realm of Darkness following her battle with Terra-Xehanort, she encounters a pack of Darksides. Although she immediately summons Master Keeper, she decides that fighting would be useless, and lets the Darksides come at her to end her misery. However, both the Earthshaker and Wayward Wind come to her rescue, a last symbol of hope from her old friends Terra and Ventus, and destroy the Darksides. Between ''Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep and Kingdom Hearts Some time after Xehanort was taken in by Ansem the Wise, Ansem became worried about the darkness and the threat it posed to the people of his kingdom, Radiant Garden. Ansem began his experiments with psychological tests, with the help of Even. One of the willing subjects was the amnesiac Xehanort, whose dormant powers Ansem could sense. At the time, Ansem and Xehanort had tried ethical experiments, but this led to their subjects' hearts to collapse. Following this, King Mickey befriended Ansem and warned him about the dangers the Heartless presented, giving Ansem an ultimatum: continue his research and endanger his world or stop his research and keep Radiant Garden safe. Ansem chose to end his research, but Xehanort continued on with the experiments after recruiting Ansem's other apprentices, Braig, Dilan, Even, Aeleus, and Ienzo. As they dabbled deeper into darkness in their research on the Heartless, they went insane and revolted against their teacher, Ansem. They banished him to the Realm of Darkness, where his lust for revenge drove him to become the mastermind, DiZ. Without their master to bar them from unethical methods, the apprentices experimented further on the Heartless, creating a Manufactory below Ansem's lab to produce artificial Heartless—the Emblems. In time, the Heartless escaped Hollow Bastion and began terrorizing the city of Radiant Garden, devouring many hearts and many innocent lives were lost as a result. ''Kingdom Hearts The Heartless appeared inside Sora's Awakening in preparation for the coming invasion of Destiny Islands. They succeeded in separating Riku from the world, and consumed Destiny Islands and everyone who lived on the islands, all except Sora, who slew many of them with the Keyblade. After he escaped, he met Leon and Yuffie, who told him about the Heartless, what creates them, and what attracts them to people: the darkness in every heart (it is later revealed in the Ansem reports that the Heartless' goal is to feed off of the energy of the hearts of people and worlds). This lead to Sora fighting the Heartless alongside Donald Duck and Goofy in an effort to save the worlds. Sora rushes to Kairi, and then encounters the Ansem-possessed Riku, who explains that Kairi's heart was inside of Sora the whole time. He also tells Sora his false name (Ansem). Ansem needed Kairi's heart so that the Heartless could devour the worlds, but Sora stood against him, and defeated him. Ansem fell, but he took Riku along with him as his vessel. After turning into a Heartless to restore Kairi's heart, then regaining his human shape from Kairi's own heart, Sora went out to save Riku from Ansem and the rest of the Heartless in End of the World. Ansem used the Heartless to try and annihilate Sora so that he could unlock Kingdom Hearts, but he was bested once again. Ansem proceeded to reach out to Kingdom Hearts to try and control the darkness from within. However, Sora spoke out, saying that he was wrong, and in actuality, Kingdom Hearts was made of Light. The light, shining through toward Ansem, destroyed his dark-fused body, giving Sora enough time to try to seal the door. This kept many Heartless from escaping the Realm of Darkness through the door. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories The Heartless that appear in all of the worlds recreated from Sora's memories of his last adventure are fake, while the ones infesting the top floor of Castle Oblivion are real. The Organization was still using Sora to free hearts from the Heartless even at this point. However, the Heartless were most likely not on the thirteenth floor until Larxene's death. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days Roxas was sent by Xemnas, Xehanort's Nobody, to work with other Organization members and release the hearts of every Heartless that he encountered. Since only Emblem Heartless release hearts, the Organization only seeks to slay their kind; Pureblood Heartless are seen only as obstacles. This also explains when you destroy a Pureblood Heartless, such as a Shadow, on a "collect hearts" mission, they do not add to your mission gauge. Roxas's sole purpose in the Organization is to destroy Emblem Heartless, and in doing so complete Kingdom Hearts for the Organization. Kingdom Hearts II After Sora awakens in Twilight Town, he travels to the Mysterious Tower, where he meets Pete, Maleficent's second in command, who is working to try and make an army of Heartless for Maleficent to use. After a skirmish with a couple of Heartless, Sora realizes that the worlds are still in danger. He meets with the Tower's master, Yen Sid, who explains Sora's new mission to him, though the Heartless have returned, they are not the main enemy this time; the new enemies are the Nobodies. After learning that Organization XIII was using Sora to release the hearts of every Heartless he destroyed so that the Organization could take them and create their own Kingdom Hearts, Sora heads for the Organization's base, The World That Never Was, to try and destroy their artificial Kingdom Hearts. After Ansem the Wise was sent to the Realm of Darkness by his exploding machine that damaged Xemnas' Kingdom Hearts, the hearts falling from the wounded moon attracted the Heartless below the castle. The Heartless climbed the castle to seek whatever they could eat. Maleficent and Pete ironically fought off their minions, the Heartless, while Sora, Kairi, Riku, and the others went on to defeat Xemnas in exchange for the Organization's castle. Kingdom Hearts coded The Heartless appear once again as enemies inside of the digital world in Jiminy's Journal. They are not the actual Heartless, but rather the information regarding Heartless that Jiminy wrote down during Sora's first adventure (hence why they have no real hearts to release). The Heartless cause tons of havoc in their data worlds by infecting System Sectors, which cause a variety of glitches in the world they are infesting. While inside a System Sector, Heartless can gain increased abilities by fusing with Bug Blox to become Bugged heartless. When Bugged, they become fuzzy pitch black with menu screen floating around them. Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance Due to the nature of the Sleeping Worlds, Heartless cannot invade worlds sealed within slumber. However, through a plan carefully laid out in advance, "Ansem" is able to manifest within the Sleeping worlds, making him the only Heartless boss fought in the game, twice. While entering Sora's Dive to the Heart, Riku is attacked by various copies of Sora's Heartless/AntiSora. It should be noted that both Heartless and Nobodies were originally going to be common enemies in this game, but were scrapped in favor of the Dream Eaters. Nature Pureblood Heartless are natural Heartless, born from the darkness in people's hearts. They are ink-black in color, with yellow beady eyes. They are more common in places that are close to or saturated in darkness. Upon their destruction, they simply disappear in puffs of darkness, without a heart leaving its body. Emblem Heartless, on the other hand, were originally created from machines that reproduce the process of a heart being consumed by darkness. Afterward, stolen hearts can become Emblems. They have more varied shapes, colors, and are branded with Xehanort's symbol to differentiate them from the Pureblood ones. They are more common on the worlds within the Realm of Light, and usually mimic the shape of creatures or objects within that world. Heartless, Emblem or Pureblood, possess several key characteristics that define them as Heartless. All Heartless are created when the darkness that resides in a person's heart consumes him or her, thus giving the darkness shape and form (this process occasionally forms Nobodies, which are born from the body and soul left behind when the heart is lost). Being born from darkness, they are mindless and act on instinct, their only goal to find hearts, and consume them to create more Heartless. But what they desire above all are the hearts of worlds, and thus they enter worlds in search of the way into the hearts of the worlds. When they consume these colossal hearts, the remains of the world form new worlds, such as Traverse Town and the End of the World. At the same time, Heartless seek out the users of the Keyblade, since the Keyblades are effective at vanquishing Heartless. In order to stop the users of the Keyblades, the Heartless use the Keyblade itself as a homing beacon, but ultimately desire to take the heart that commands it. Because of this, Keyblade wielders and everyone around them are under constant attack. The Heartless, being mindless, usually have no master to direct their actions and instead act on the instinct to gather more hearts. However, there are some higher beings who can command them. Higher ranking Heartless can act as leaders themselves; either as lieutenants, like the Guard Armor, or as de facto rulers, like Xehanort's Heartless. Also, Heartless will obey those with an affinity for darkness and a strong will. If many people attempt to control them, the Heartless will side with whomever is most powerful. Those with hearts, such as Maleficent, endanger themselves however, as the Heartless are attracted to their hearts and if they show weakness, the Heartless will not think twice of consuming their hearts. Nobodies, on the other hand, can fully command them without this risk, since they have no hearts to feed on. However, as stated by Pete, in a world that is too close to darkness, such as The World That Never Was, the Heartless will not obey anyone, no matter how strong they are. Heartless make use of the "corridors of darkness", inter-dimensional pathways that connect the many worlds. These pathways are located in the Realm of Darkness, and thus are very dangerous to use if one is not accustomed to the darkness. List of Heartless 'Special Heartless' File:Ansem, Seeker of Darkness KH.png|'Ansem, Seeker of Darkness'''Ansem, Seeker of Darkness appears to have characteristics of both Emblem and Pureblood Heartless, in both his human and world forms. In both forms, he carries the Heartless emblem on his chest, though in human form it could possibly be an article of clothing. Notably, though, the similar outfit worn by Master Xehanort does not possess the emblem. Furthermore, the shadowy symbiote attached to him in both forms possesses the "hollow heart" shared by many other Pureblood Heartless. Though it is uncertain what the situation of this Heartless is, it is possible that this makes him both an Emblem and Pureblood Heartless. Pureblood Heartless |} Emblem Heartless |} Gummi Heartless |} In Fandom Cosplay Heartless do have a large role in fanfiction, but when it comes to cosplaying, they are not as popular. The main reason is the huge variety of shapes and colors and lack of humanoid figures. Despite the difficulty of the cosplay, they do tend to be well-received. Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, obviously, is also the prime Heartless people tend to choose — not only because of his impeccable human features without casting his Heartless side away, but also because of his role, as he is one of the most memorable characters in the whole Kingdom Hearts series. Notes and references See also *Nobody *Unversed *Dream Eater fr:Sans-cœur de:Herzlose Category:Original characters Category:Heartless Category:Pureblood Heartless Category:Emblem Heartless Category:Enemies Category:Bosses